Estrella picked up on that. "Will Salt be here?"
"I doubt that a lot," Hypatia said, her tone even frostier than her look.
Estrella was puzzled. "What's the matter, Hypatia? Don't you approve of Salt getting pregnant?"
Hypatia, on the point of leaving the room, turned with a flounce of her colorful robes. "I don't disapprove of pregnancy. It's the original, and at one time it was the only, way of bringing more female children into the world. So it's an acceptable evil. What's disgusting is the way Salt chose to do it. She had physical sexual intercourse with a male! At this time in the history of scientific progress! In my original time women accepted that because, although very distasteful, it was also unavoidable. But now there are plenty of parthenogenetic ways to get pregnant. She chose that one!" She made the kind of grunt usually written as "ugh," and then said, "Here's Klara."
Whoever the people were that Klara was expecting, they had to be important. Stan had not expected to see her looking so—well—dressed up. Her hair was perfectly coiffed. Her gown was low-cut, gold-colored silk. Even those eyebrows seemed somehow tamed. Her elegance, however, didn't prevent her from giving Stan a pat on the head in passing and Estrella a full-fledged hug. Then she held Estrella at arm's length for a critical inspection. "All right," she said, "you're looking healthy enough, but what about the baby? Can I see her?"
Of course she could; Stork summoned the image up at once. Of course she got a commentary from the proud parents, too, mostly the prospective father. "If she looks like she needs a shave," he told her, "that's what they call lanugo hair. It falls off. And—can you see?—she's getting nails on her fingers and toes."
When every viewable organ had been discussed, Klara sighed and sank back into a chair. "You're very lucky people," she informed them. "Salt, too. I've told her so. Hypatia has some criticisms"—she threw a glance at her shipmind, now dispassionately lounging on a chaise across the room—"but I'm just thrilled. I hope she and Achiever had a good time making it. Poor bastards, it doesn't happen all that often for them. You noticed Salt turning purple? That's the signal she's coming into heat. Either the sight of the color change, or maybe some kind of pheromones, turns every nearby male into a lovesick suitor. Some ways it's great to be a girl among the Heechee. They always have a bunch of males hanging around when they make their choice."
"So then," Estrella asked, "why in the world did she pick Achiever?"
"Who knows? Sigfrid thinks the Stored Minds might have suggested it, to help Achiever in his cure." She glanced at the clock. "The others'll be here in a moment, but they won't stay long. Dealing with us organics is a real strain for them—oh, didn't I tell you? They're all machine-stored. Anyway, have a drink while we wait. Hypatia will get whatever you like."
And then, while Hypatia's servers were bringing an iced tea for Estrella and a dark German beer for Stan, the doorbell rang.
A doorbell it really was not—it was a quick carillon peal of chimes, custom-installed for Klara—but it was a long way from the usual Heechee growl. Hypatia was already at the door. She didn't touch it, of course; but it opened and Sigrid von Shrink came in. "Am I the first?" he asked— unconvincingly, Stan thought, because von Shrink certainly knew that already. "Well, they'll be here in a moment—ah, here they come now!"
One after another, pop, pop—but the pops were quite soundless— three persons appeared in Klara's drawing room. Two were elderly Heechee, both curiously seated on chairs rather than Heechee perch because they lacked the usual between-the-legs Heechee pod. The remaining one was a tall, powerful-looking human male in a floppy white hat. "Glad you could make it," Sigfrid said affably to the new arrivals, and then, to Klara, "These are the people I wanted you to meet. Thermocline, he sort of represents the Stored Minds for us. Burnish; he was the one who aban—who, I mean, was required to leave Achiever on Gateway. Now as a Stored Mind in the Core he has become an expert in stellar dynamics. And this is Marc Antony, who does all the cooking." Then, gesturing to complete the introductions, "And this is Gelle-Klara Moynlin, and these our young friends Stan Avery and Estrella Pancorbo. Now, if Hypatia will just bring in her servers, Marc has been kind enough to prepare a light collation for us as we talk."
Stan had never doubted that Klara was an extremely high-ranked person, but until now he hadn't known just how high-ranked she was. High-ranked enough that stored persons who, presumably, were not impressed by the wealth or fame of organics would take time to come to her home for a chat. But there they were.
Stan was almost equally impressed by the fact that the food was good. The "light collation" was not only tasty but not all that light. There was a pot of delicately tender meatballs, little crackers that held a slice each of duck liver and of a crunchy vegetable that Klara kindly identified as Chinese water chestnuts, nutlike things in a sort of fruity sauce that even Klara couldn't put a name to, but ate as fast as she could. Which is what pretty much everybody was doing with pretty much everything that they were served. Stan was puzzled to note that the electronic persons were apparently eating the same sorts of foods as themselves until, unthinking, he reached for one of Burnish's hors d'oeuvres. His fingers passed clear through it, and the man in the floppy white hat turned away from a conversation to give him a small smile. "Simulations eat simulated food, of course," he said, and then the smile dwindled. "Oh," he said. "You're the person who turned off access to his home, I believe."
Stan could not see why that concerned the man, but he said, "I guess," his mouth full of barbecued morsels of what might have been chicken. Then he remembered the man's name. "You're, uh, Marc Antony, right? So I guess you made all this stuff?" And, when the man nodded, couldn't help saying with enthusiasm, "It's the best food I ever had in my life!"
"I see," said the chef. Then, a moment later, "Try the candied peacock's tongues. They're a specialty."
Stan did try them, though he regretted it pretty fast. Once, in Istanbul long ago, one of Mr. Ozden's girls had given him a sugar-coated caterpillar as a joke. This was very like it, and had very nearly the same effect. Only two things kept Stan from instantly throwing it up. One was the reflection that the "peacock" whose tongue he had swallowed had never lived, since that dish was constructed out of the same CHON-food as everything else in his diet. The other was the distraction of the animated conversations going on around him.
The main thing that was on the mind of the old Heechee, Thermocline, was the growing immigration problem. Humans were flooding into the Core by the hundreds of thousands, and where were the Heechee supposed to put them all? Marc Antony's burning question was security— individual human security. "Human beings aren't like Heechee. Some of them fight. Some of them steal, and kill, and rape. We're going to need police, and courts, and laws, and some kind of legislatures to pass those laws." Sigfrid von Shrink's main concern was how to supply all those immigrants with the kind of human-oriented things that were only obtainable Outside—and how to pay for them.
At which point everyone paused and looked expectantly at Klara.
She grinned, a little ruefully, as though she had been expecting no less. "Well, why not?" she said. "Sigfrid has been hinting around, and he's right. Hypatia?"
The shipmind made herself visible at once. She seemed to have redressed herself for the company. The robes were even more ornate, the finger rings of huge, uncut rubies and sapphires. She looked toward Klara. "Boss, you called me?"
Klara sighed but forbore to mention that there was no doubt in her mind that Hypatia had been present, if not visible, all along. "I'm thinking that we haven't talked much about my money lately. Do I still have any?"